Exergames for falls prevention in sheltered homes:A feasibility study

Introduction:Falls prevention is a global priority given its substantial impact on older adults and cost to healthcare systems. Advances in telerehabilitation technology such as `exergaming’ show potential for delivering accessible, engaging exercise programs for older adults. This study aimed to establish the feasibility, acceptability and usability of exergaming in sheltered housing.Methods: A mixed-methods study with participants randomised in 2 sheltered housing facilities to intervention (n = 1 home, 12 participants) and control (n = 1 home 2, 12 participants) provided usual care for all, (physiotherapy prescribed strength and balance exercises and falls prevention advice) and a 6-week supervised exergaming programme (MIRA) offered 3 times per week to the intervention group only. At 6 weeks, feasibility, usability and acceptability outcomes were collected and analysed using descriptive statistics; qualitative focus groups with participants and interviews with staff were also completed and thematically analysed to elicit barriers and facilitators to usability and acceptability.Results: Mean exercise per week increased from 10.6 to 14.1 minutes in the control group and 9.6 to 36.8 minutes in the intervention group. All study processes and measures appeared feasible; 72% of those invited consented to taking part and 92% completed 6-week follow-up. Individual domains for the System Usability Scores (SUS) showed participants felt veryconfident’usingthesystemwith⊃port(70%),wod−’sinℎℎ⊃or(70%),̲like to use exergames frequently’ (50%) and found the system easy→use’(90%).However,theyalsofe&lt;they→’(90%).,ℎ&lt;ℎneeded to learn a lot at the beginning’ (40%) and would `need technical support’ (70%) for independent use of the exergames. Mean overall SUS was 63 reflecting moderate usability for independent use. Qualitative data indicated exergames were well received and highlighted motivational and social aspects; costs and set up. Staff also felt exergaming complemented traditional care.Discussion: Our study contributes to the evidence guiding the use of exergames to deliver suitable falls prevention interventions for older adults within sheltered housing in community settings.<br/

Exergames for falls prevention in sheltered homes:A feasibility study

Introduction:Falls prevention is a global priority given its substantial impact on older adults and cost to healthcare systems. Advances in telerehabilitation technology such as `exergaming’ show potential for delivering accessible, engaging exercise programs for older adults. This study aimed to establish the feasibility, acceptability and usability of exergaming in sheltered housing.Methods: A mixed-methods study with participants randomised in 2 sheltered housing facilities to intervention (n = 1 home, 12 participants) and control (n = 1 home 2, 12 participants) provided usual care for all, (physiotherapy prescribed strength and balance exercises and falls prevention advice) and a 6-week supervised exergaming programme (MIRA) offered 3 times per week to the intervention group only. At 6 weeks, feasibility, usability and acceptability outcomes were collected and analysed using descriptive statistics; qualitative focus groups with participants and interviews with staff were also completed and thematically analysed to elicit barriers and facilitators to usability and acceptability.Results: Mean exercise per week increased from 10.6 to 14.1 minutes in the control group and 9.6 to 36.8 minutes in the intervention group. All study processes and measures appeared feasible; 72% of those invited consented to taking part and 92% completed 6-week follow-up. Individual domains for the System Usability Scores (SUS) showed participants felt veryconfident’usingthesystemwith⊃port(70%),wod−’sinℎℎ⊃or(70%),̲like to use exergames frequently’ (50%) and found the system easy→use’(90%).However,theyalsofe&lt;they→’(90%).,ℎ&lt;ℎneeded to learn a lot at the beginning’ (40%) and would `need technical support’ (70%) for independent use of the exergames. Mean overall SUS was 63 reflecting moderate usability for independent use. Qualitative data indicated exergames were well received and highlighted motivational and social aspects; costs and set up. Staff also felt exergaming complemented traditional care.Discussion: Our study contributes to the evidence guiding the use of exergames to deliver suitable falls prevention interventions for older adults within sheltered housing in community settings.<br/

A novel smart somatosensory wearable assistive device for older adults’ home rehabilitation during the COVID-19 pandemic

BackgroundDue to the Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) related social distancing measures and health service suspension, physical activity has declined, leading to increased falling risk and disability, and consequently, compromising the older adult health. How to improve the quality of older adult life has become a crucial social issue.ObjectiveIn traditional rehabilitation, manual and repetitive muscle training cannot identify the patient’s rehabilitation effect, and increasing the willingness to use it is not easy. Therefore, based on the usability perspective, this study aims to develop a novel smart somatosensory wearable assistive device (called SSWAD) combined with wireless surface electromyography (sEMG) and exergame software and hardware technology. The older adult can do knee extension, ankle dorsiflexion, and ankle plantar flexion rehabilitation exercises at home. Meanwhile, sEMG values can be digitally recorded to assist physicians (or professionals) in judgment, treatment, or diagnosis.MethodsTo explore whether the novel SSWAD could improve the older adult willingness to use and motivation for home rehabilitation, 25 frail older adult (12 males and 13 females with an average age of 69.3) perform the rehabilitation program with the SSWAD, followed by completing the system usability scale (SUS) questionnaire and the semi-structured interview for the quantitative and qualitative analyses. In addition, we further investigate whether the factor of gender or prior rehabilitation experience would affect the home rehabilitation willingness or not.ResultsAccording to the overall SUS score, the novel SSWAD has good overall usability performance (77.70), meaning that the SSWAD makes older adult feel interested and improves their willingness for continuous rehabilitation at home. In addition, the individual item scores of SUS are shown that female older adult with prior rehabilitation experience perform better in “Learnability” (t = 2.35, p = 0.03) and “Confidence” (t = −3.24, p = 0.01). On the contrary, male older adult without rehabilitation experience are more willing to adopt new technologies (t = −2.73, p = 0.02), and perform better in “Learnability” (t = 2.18, p = 0.04) and “Confidence” (t = −3.75, p &lt; 0.001) with the SSWAD. In addition, the result of the semi-structured interview shows that the operation of the SSWAD is highly flexible, thus reducing older adult burden during the rehabilitation exercise and using them long-term.ConclusionThis novel SSWAD receives consistently positive feedback regardless of the gender or prior rehabilitation experience of elders. The SSWAD could be used as a novel way of home rehabilitation for elders, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Older adult can do rehabilitation exercises at home, and physicians could make proper judgments or adjust suitable treatments online according to the sEMG data, which older adult can know their rehabilitation progress at the same time. Most importantly, older adult do not have to go to the hospital every time for rehabilitation, which significantly reduces time and the risk of infection

MUSICAL EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENTS

However, it is hard specifically for people with visual impairments to do exercise without proper guidance. They have accessibility issues and thus, without others ’ help, they cannot be sure if they are doing exercise in a consistent form. To address this problem, I have developed a Musical Exercise platform for people with visual impairments . With the help of audio feedback of Musical Exercise, people with visual impairments can perform exercises in a good form consistently. To assess usability of the system and compare different audio profiles of the system, I designed six different con ditions, including blindfolded or visual without audio conditions, and blindfolded or visual with two different types of audio feedback (discrete vs. continuous) conditions. Eighteen sighted participants participated in the experiment, by doing two exercises - wall sit and squat with all six conditions. The System Usability Scale results show that Musical Exercise is a usable exercise assistance system without any adverse effect on exercise completion time or perceived workload (NASA - TLX). Also, the results confirm that with a specific sound design (i.e., discrete), blindfolded sighted people can do exercise as consistently as sighted people. This implies that not all sounds equally work and thus, care is required to refine auditory displays considering user s, tasks, and environments. Potentials and limitations of Musical Exercise and future works are discussed with the results

KinFit: A factual aerobic sport game with stimulation support

Overweight and obesity is a situation where a person has stacked too much fat that might affect negatively his/her health. Many people skip doing exercises due to several facts related to the encouragement, health-awareness, and time arrangement. Diverse aerobic video games have been proposed to help users in doing exercises. However, we observe some limitations in existing games. For instance, they don't give correct scores while wearing Arabic traditional suits, they don't consider showing immersive realistic scenes, and they don't stimulate users to do exercises and keeping them encouraged to play more. We propose in this paper an aerobic video game that displays real scenes of aerobic coaches and keeps the user notified about doing exercises. It is a kind of serious games that allows users to learn aerobic movements and practice with aerobic coaches. It contains several exercises in which each can be played on normal screen or in fully immersive virtual reality (VR). While the user is playing, he/she can see the playing score with the estimated amount of burned calories. It stores the time when the user plays to remind him/her about doing exercises again. The profound user studies demonstrated the usability and effectiveness of the proposed game. 2018 Kassel University Press GmbH.The authors would like to acknowledge that devices and equipment were provided by the Visual Computing Research Center, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, at Qatar University. This publication was supported by Qatar University Collaborative High Impact Grant QUHI-CENG-18/19-1. The content of this article and its quality are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of Qatar University.Scopu

Sustainable Technology and Elderly Life

The coming years will see an exponential increase in the proportion of elderly people in our society. This accelerated growth brings with it major challenges in relation to the sustainability of the system. There are different aspects where these changes will have a special incidence: health systems and their monitoring; the development of a framework in which the elderly can develop their daily lives satisfactorily; and in the design of intelligent cities adapted to the future sociodemographic profile. The discussion of the challenges faced, together with the current technological evolution, can show possible ways of meeting the challenges. There are different aspects where these changes will have a special incidence: health systems and their monitoring; the development of a framework in which the elderly can develop their daily lives satisfactorily; and in the design of intelligent cities adapted to the future sociodemographic profile. This special issue discusses various ways in which sustainable technologies can be applied to improve the lives of the elderly. Six articles on the subject are featured in this volume. From a systematic review of the literature to the development of gamification and health improvement projects. The articles present suggestive proposals for the improvement of the lives of the elderly. The volume is a resource of interest for the scientific community, since it shows different research gaps in the current state of the art. But it is also a document that can help social policy makers and people working in this domain to planning successful projects

Usability Test of Exercise Games Designed for Rehabilitation of Elderly Patients After Hip Replacement Surgery: Pilot Study

BACKGROUND: Patients who receive rehabilitation after hip replacement surgery are shown to have increased muscle strength and better functional performance. However, traditional physiotherapy is often tedious and leads to poor adherence. Exercise games, provide ways for increasing the engagement of elderly patients and increase the uptake o